In the treatment, repair, or reconstruction of injured or damaged bone, foreign materials are often implanted in the body in the form of prostheses, bone pins, bone cement, and the like. For many reasons, it would be highly desirable if these foreign materials could be eliminated and replaced by natural tissues as the body repairs the injured area.
Biodegradable and bioresorbable materials have been examined for use as implantable prostheses, and the like, and also as templates around which the body can regenerate various types of soft tissue. During or after soft tissue regeneration is complete, the biodegradable template is naturally eliminated from the body.
It would be highly desirable to develop a biodegradable material having sufficient load bearing properties to permit its use as a bone substitute as well as a bone template so that natural bone tissue regenerates in the prosthetic template while the template degrades and is gradually eliminated from the body to be replaced by natural bone tissue.